Google’s Alphabet Dh18bn richer with 20pc profit increase

Our newfound obsession with video is making Google richer. Amid all the news from Microsoft, Apple and Samsung this week, you could be forgiven for ignoring the biggest daddy of them all.

But as they do, quietly and steadily, Google’s spiders have been raking it in – largely from mobile advertising and YouTube.

Perhaps surprisingly in the summer of Pokémon Go, the search giant’s parent Alphabet has posted a revenue jump of 20 per cent over the third quarter of this year, Reuters reports. Looked at another way, that’s a 27 per cent increase in net income to $5.06 billion (Dh18.59 billion). Total revenue was $22.45 billion, making for the seventh straight quarter of double-digit revenue growth. And it’s higher than expected! Who says we’re in a recession?

So how does Google plan to keep it up in a market where Facebook has positioned itself as the curated search alternative? The company’s Chief Executive, Sundar Pichai, believes fresh gains will accrue from voice search, with new products such as Google Assistant and the Google Home smart speaker.

“We feel well positioned as we transition to a new era of computing,” Pichai said in an conference call, according to Reuters. “This new era is one in which people will experience computing more naturally and seamlessly in the context of their lives, powered by intelligent assistants and the cloud.”